A Taxonomy of Organizational Justice Theories

1987/01/01 by Jerald Greenberg · 4 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · #Management and Organizational Studies #Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior #Management Theory and Practice

paper · doi:10.5465/amr.1987.4306437

openalex publication_date 1987/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

A taxonomy is presented that categorizes theories of organizational justice with respect to two independent dimensions: a reactiveproactive dimension and a process-content dimension. Various theories within each of the four resulting categories are identified. The implications of the taxonomy are discussed with respect to clarifying theoretical interrelationships, tracking research trends, and identifying needed areas of research. Stimulated by conceptualizations of justice in organizations by such theorists as Homans (1961), Adams (1965), and Walster, Berscheid, and Walster (1973), organizational researchers devoted considerable attention in the 1960s and 1970s to testing propositions about the distribution of payment and other work-related rewards derived from equity theory (for reviews, see Campbell &

Citations

• What Should Be Done with Equity Theory?
• A model of egoistical relative deprivation.
• Equity, Equality, and Need: What Determines Which Value Will Be Used as the Basis of Distributive Justice?
• Advances In Experimental Social Psychology
• The psychology of interpersonal relations.

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• Organizational behavior [wikipedia]